


3 Words

by hyrinshratu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:28:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyrinshratu/pseuds/hyrinshratu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the final showdown, Harry says three words to Voldemort that change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3 Words

Harry and Voldemort stared at each other across the Great Hall, their wands pointed at each other.

"Tom, I know what you're about to do, and I know what will happen if you do. If you attack me, you'll die."

Voldemort gestured dismissively. "My Horcruxes"

"are all destroyed. My friends and I saw to that. You are mortal now. Vulnerable. And pointing the Elder Wand at its true Master. But there is a way for you to walk away from this, Tom."

"Do tell," Voldemort said, his voice wavering slightly.

"We have found a way to repair the damage done to your soul, Tom. It's not easy, but it's the only way if you don't want to be another body here in the Hall and a deformed spirit trapped for eternity in limbo," Harry said, forcing himself not to look at the bodies of Colin and Lavender as they hovered at the edge of his peripheral vision. "If you can bring yourself to feel genuine remorse for what you've done, then your soul can be restored. You won't be immortal, but you'll be alive."

"Remorse?" Voldemort scoffed. "What do I have to feel remorseful about? All these traitors and fiends that must die to bring about the New Order?"

"How about murdering my parents, Tom?" Harry asked in a small voice. "Taking another Wizarding child born of both Wizarding and Muggle blood and orphaning them, just as you were as a baby."

"You desire that I should apologize for the deaths of your parents?" Incredulous, Voldemort thought back to that night in Godric's Hollow, remembering how James had stood defiant before him; how Lily had been willing to lay down her life for her child. He gripped the Elder Wand tighter, preparing to fire the Killing Curse and rid himself of this annoying brat once and for all.

"Tom, I know what you are about to do, but before you do, I need you to know something." Harry walked across the Hall and stopped only a few feet away. Raising his hand, he dropped his wand to the ground and laid his hand gently on Voldemort's shoulder. Looking him in the eyes, he said softly:

"I forgive you."

Voldemort laughed.

He laughed and laughed.

He laughed until he fell to the floor.

He laughed until tears streamed down his face.

He laughed until he stopped laughing, and the tears kept coming anyway.

Great throaty gasps echoed through the Hall, and as he wept, Voldemort felt every eye on him. Eyes that burned with hatred, and anger, and grief.

And pity.

As he wept, he did not see the lights that slowly drifted into the room. Great white orbs, moving slowly, descended from the ceiling and circled around him.

Seven lights circled him.

Each, in its turn, entered his body. His wails of grief became agony as his fractured soul reassembled itself, and the full weight of his actions came upon him.

When at last he fell silent, the crowd stood still, the mood in the room hanging by a thread.

FInally, he stirred.

The man who stood before them bore little resemblence to the demon that had haunted their every moment. Gone were the thin slits between mouth and eyes, replaced with a nose. A lucious head of hair sat atop the previously bald head. The palid grey flesh once again had the color of life to it.

He looked around, at each person who stood before him, before making his move.

The Elder Wand hit the floor with the sound of a gunshot, making each person jump in surprise. He held his hands out, palms up.

"To each of you, I am sorry. I have done things which can never be forgiven, but now...I am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions."

Before anyone could move, a voice screamed out, "NO!!!"

Bellatrix LeStrange lept to her feet from where she had been pretending to be dead, wand raised. "What have you done to my Master?! _AVADA KEDAVRA!"_

The green light lept from her wand and flew across the room, aimed straight for Harry's heart.

A blur of black shoved Harry just before the spell hit, knocking him to aside. Every mouth gaped at the sight before them.

Voldemort lay dead on the floor, killed by his most trusted lieutenant.

"MASTER! _AVADA KEDAVRA!"_

Harry instinctively ducked as the spell once more flew at him. He watched, detached, as it flew over his head and heard, horrifed, as someone screamed out in a short moment of fear and pain, then fell limp to the floor.

Beside him on the ground, Luna Lovegood lay dead.

A primal scream of rage and pain echoed as Neville Longbottom dropped to his knees, craddling the body of the woman he loved. Ginny Weasley found herself one of five voices that screamed out together

" _CRUCIO_!"

Bellatrix writhed in agony for several long seconds before she went limp and her eyes glassed over. It was several seconds more before Ginny, Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, and Flitwick ended the spell and stared at the woman who they had just agonized to death.

McGonagall walked over to the still twitching corpse, spat in it's face, and muttered, "Bitch," before joining those trying to console Neville.

**Author's Note:**

> I never could quite believe that Molly killed Bellatrix, and let's be honest: she deserved a much more violent/painful death.


End file.
